Thursday, February 21, 2008

There's a war coming

There's a war coming - a border war. No, not between the US and Mexico. This battle is going to take place here in the Scenic City. It seems that Georgia is trying to claim that a chunk of Tennessee actually should be in Georgia. From the AP:

The Republican-controlled state House and Senate approved a resolution Wednesday asserting that a flawed 1818 survey mistakenly placed Georgia's northern line just short of the river. The measure also calls for the governor to establish a commission to sort out the dispute.

Of course, their motives are obvious to all. Atlanta has exhausted its reservoirs and rather than trying to take tough measures to overcome the well-publicized drought of last summer, they've decided it's easier to steal the Tennessee River. To bolster their claim they're reaching back almost 200 years, to an old border dispute:

The dispute traces back to a 19th century survey that misplaced the 35th parallel. If Tennessee's southern border stretched along the parallel, as Congress designated in 1796, Georgia would have a share of the Tennessee — a river with about 15 times greater flow than the one Atlanta depends on for water.

At least my local rep is seeing this for what it is (even though I didn't vote for him!)

"It's the silliest thing I've ever seen any group of Republicans do. I'm embarrassed that they would embarrass the party like that," said Tennessee Rep. Gerald McCormick, a Republican from Chattanooga, a Tennessee town just north of the state line. "They're idiots."

This is personal for me - because if these idiots get their way, I'll be living in Georgia and working in Tennessee. Personal, because we have no personal income tax in Tennessee and, if the boundaries move, I'll be filling the coffers in Atlanta.